Serenity Visual Companion
All the insider stuff you know you want. Pictures from production, from behind the scenes, pictures of star charts and money and weapons and locations and more! Interviews with Joss about the ‘Verse, about the history of the movie, and lots of the technical side of his job. Oh, and the complete script of the movie.
Titan Books, trade paperback, 160 pages.
Buy: Amazon
January 25th, 2006 at 8:29 am
[...] This is excellent news. The Serenity Visual Companion is a beautiful book, made with affection for the movie and crammed with lots of goodies. Here’s hoping they do as good (or better) with the show. More news to come. [...]
August 27th, 2006 at 2:05 am
This is a really cool book. I bought it at an interesting comic store in Seattle, WA and browsed through it when I got home to Canada. I found myself not only browsing through it, but reading it word for word — looking at every single detail in ever picture, on every page. The artwork in the book is stunning, as are the scripts which are mostly consisting of the movie script, but with a few changes.
Some Obvious changes…
Like… Mal saying the ‘Eff’ word!
Anyway, it’s a really good book, and you don’t even have to see ‘Firefly’ to understand it, the characters, the ship, or the verse; though, like any Browncoat, I endorse purchasing the DVD series first!
July 25th, 2007 at 3:33 am
Does this provide any secrets about the back story to the setting? I’m glad that the movie pointed out plainly that this takes place in, so far as I know, a single solar system, which keeps it firmly in the realm of plausibility, one of my major draws to Firefly (my first falling in love moment was when I noticed during the space salvage operation that there was no sound!). Before the movie they used the word galaxy a lot. I realize it could be construed as a generic term, since this IS a different star system than Earth’s, but I felt more comfortable when they let you know it was in an area that human beings could reasonably travel through in month’s time.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Most folks figure it’s a multi-star system (like Centauri, only not that exact system). Two or three (or more) stars of differing sizes and ages interacting with each, with planets and moons for each. Joss didn’t go much for scientific exactitude, but it’s workable.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:20 am
Multi-star systems are tricky, but I’m betting even a single star that’s pretty hot will have a wide band that would allow for a lot of different stable climates to develop. I’m not too worried about whether or not terroid planets will ever be found in the number depicted in Firefly, it’s sorta like saying “take that there are a bunch of terraformed planets as a given and move on from there,” which I don’t find very contentious. What works is that it takes a long time for our characters to go from planet to planet. You make a decision to go somewhere, and you wait, making sure you have enough fuel.
I figure it’s best not to go into too much detail, because that’s just opening yourself up for criticism (although this sort of daring is already ahead of the curve of what most television or film science fiction has managed to date). The thing is, since it wasn’t what was important, he didn’t go into too much detail, allowing for plausible interpolations. Very endearing, when it’s easy to be very rigid with your world building, throwing in details which destroy plausibility just to make things expedient. It starts with the people and works outward, which is why it’s probably one of my favorite television programs to date.
Sheesh, sorry if this is going off topic…